Longshot GOP Candidate Brings Persistence to New Hampshire Primary Bid

HOOKSET, N.H.—The Ryan Binkley presidential campaign, consisting of the candidate, one staff member, and a photographer, made its way to the Robie Country Store on Jan. 20. The picture-perfect New England establishment is a time-honored stop on New Hampshire’s campaign trail.

Nikki Haley paid a visit to the store the previous day, along with Gov. John Sununu. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Vivek Ramaswamy, and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott have all stopped by during this election cycle.

The walls are lined with photos of visitors from elections past, including George W. Bush, Mitt Romney, John Edwards, Al Gore, and Rosalynn Carter.

The candidate sips coffee and chats with a handful of New Hampshirites. His pitch is simple.

America isn’t working for too many Americans. We need to make housing more affordable, take on the medical establishment to reduce healthcare costs, close the border and fix our broken immigration system, and renew America’s cities.

Heads nod, and the listeners, all appearing to be in their 20s, agree that they would volunteer time to a national service project if it would really help the country.

A Candidate with a Dream

Ryan Binkley is the Texas businessman and pastor whose fifth-place finish in the Iowa caucuses earned a comedic mention by TV host Stephen Colbert on Jan. 15. That two minutes of fame likely gained the candidate more media exposure than he received in six months of campaigning in Iowa.

Yet Mr. Binkley’s quixotic approach, doggedly pursuing his vision for America despite the odds, has begun to earn some notice.

Although he gained fewer than 1,000 votes in the Iowa caucuses, just 0.7 percent of the total, Mr. Binkley managed to finish ahead of former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson. When entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy dropped out of the race on Jan. 16, Mr. Binkley became an unlikely fourth-running candidate for the Republican nomination.

A Messenger/HarrisX poll released six days before the Jan. 23 primary shows Mr. Binkley polling at 2 percent compared with 6 percent for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

With Mr. DeSantis’s exit from the race on Jan. 21, Mr. Binkley has moved to third place, albeit a distant third.

The genial Texan is making the rounds of diners and country stores in the Granite State, offering his plan to unify the nation to anyone who will listen.

As for the long odds, Mr. Binkley brushes them away, insisting that he is the candidate best positioned to bring a bitterly divided country together.

“And when’s the last time we had a president of the United States of America to where everybody felt like, ‘That’s my president,” he asks earnestly. “It’s been I think, since [Ronald] Reagan, [John F.] Kennedy. It’s been generational leaders. I think it’s time for one. It’s very clear to me, the leaders today cannot unite our country.”

Mr. Binkley is the founder of Generational Equity Group, which specializes in business mergers and acquisitions, and co-founder and lead pastor at Create Church in Richardson, Texas. He is married and has five children ages 13 to 33.

His pitch to voters is infused with the optimism one might expect from a pastor. He describes himself as a right-wing conservative on financial matters and conservative “with love and grace” on social issues.

“We [Republicans’I have a message that we don’t care. We need to care. And that’s my message,” Mr. Binkley says, speaking about abortion, foster care, and related matters.

After the roundtable discussion at Robie’s, Mr. Binkley asks the store’s sixth-generation proprietor, Tim Robie, what concerns him most.

Mr. Robie talks about the regulations dealing with operating a family-owned farm-to-table business. “I can’t even offer you a glass of raw milk,” he tells Mr Binkley, noting that New Hampshire is one of 33 states in which it’s illegal to distribute unpasteurized milk, even to a neighbor.

As a businessman, Mr. Robie maintains strict neutrality about political candidates outside the voting booth. But he will allow that Mr. Binkley is “a smart guy. An interesting guy. He talks about a lot of the subjects we all should be interested in.”

Finding a Pathway

Mr. Binkley boasts more than 82,000 donors and has added his name to the primary ballot in 33 states. He is in litigation in two others, Washington and Minnesota, where he says the Republican party is blocking his access to the ballot.

Much of his campaign, though, is self-financed. He admits to having spent more than $8 million of his own money in this effort, including paid media as well as retail campaign stops like this one.

Now Mr. Binkley hopes to gain some of Mr. DeSantis’s former supporters.

“[Mr. DeSantis’s supporters] are obviously very different than Nikki Haley. And so they’re not going to go there. And not everybody’s for President Trump,” Mr. Binkley says. “I think a lot of people that have supported [Mr. DeSantis] would certainly be interested in looking at our campaign. We stand for the same things.”

Mr. Binkley believes his stance on border security, depoliticizing education, and promoting business growth will appeal to DeSantis followers.

Regardless of the outcome of the upcoming primary, Mr. Binkley intends to carry on his quest well beyond New Hampshire.

Longshot candidates, especially those with no political experience, seldom gain traction in presidential races. There are exceptions. Some outsider candidates have succeeded in broadcasting their message and changing the dynamics of the contest.

Wendell Willkie, who had never sought public office prior to his run for the presidency, gained the Republican nomination in 1940. He lost to Franklin D. Roosevelt in the general election.

Texas businessman H. Ross Perot ran as an independent in 1992, finishing third behind Bill Clinton and Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kan.). Mr. Perot, who had never held elected office, received nearly 20 million votes, just under 19 percent of the total. However, he failed to win any states and therefore got no electoral votes.

Mr. Perot later started the Reform Party, whose candidate Jesse Ventura was elected governor of Minnesota in 1998.

Consumer and environmental protection advocate Ralph Nader initially resisted attempts to draft him as a presidential candidate but did enter three races in the 2000s. As the Green Party candidate in 2000, he gained nearly 3 percent of the popular vote.

Mr. Binkley is determined to gain a hearing for his message also.

“Every other candidate has been heard for 70 hours by Epoch, Fox News, CNN—you name it,” he says. “That’s not that hard. What’s hard is leadership. And that’s where I really feel called to lead, to get our country out of this mud.”